Young hope and an old dream

Young hope and an old dream

We sat on a bench, my new young friend and I, looking over the Bay,

he with feathers checkered brown and grey, fawn and cream, 

 the tips of his new black wings not yet distinguished

by the butterfly mirrors of grown-up white.

He stared long at me with his small dark eye, quietly snapped

his curved dark beak, and turned his sleek gull’s head

to stare far out into the shimmering horizon.

There he saw, I fancied, a seething shoal of forty hundred herring, 

bounty enough to feed his flock for a season and a day.

I saw there a Man, who walked across the the tumbling waters

with two small fish and a basket of loaves, 

and love enough to feed the whole sad, hungry world.

Naomi

Canterbury Cathedral - the Corona chapel

And glow more intense than blaze of branch, or brazier,

Stirs the dumb spirit; no wind, but pentecostal fire

In the dark time of the year.                                       Eliot:  Little Gidding

 

At the farthest eastern point of the Cathedral there is a circular chapel long known as the Corona Chapel. Its shrine once held the crown of Tomas Becket’s head sliced off in 1172 by one of Henry II’s murdering barons.  It became a place of popular pilgrimage, the air sharp with the the fragrance of incense and the vault echoing with a million prayers of the faithful.  But in 1537 its treasures were plundered and the shrine destroyed by Henry VIII’s iconoclastic Commissioners.  Empty now, it serves to remind us of those other myriad brave souls who lived and died serving God and loving their neighbours.  With its jewel stained windows, its airy emptiness, its soft light and gentle peace, it has become place of thankful remembrance and quiet contemplation.   

Here are especially honoured the saints of our own time, among them Martin Luther King;  Archbishop Oscar Romero assassinated because he fought for the rights of the poor;  Maximilian Kolbe, Franciscan priest, took the place of a stranger sentenced to death by starvation in Auschwitz;  Maria Skobtsova Russian aristocrat, poet and nun, assisted Jewish refugees to escape Nazi occupied Europe, died in a Ravensbruck gas chamber in the place of an unknown Jewish woman;  Edith Stein, Jewish philosopher and Carmelite nun, gassed in Auschwitz.

Theirs was a noble and disparate company, faithful to their God and prepared even to die for love of a stranger.  They took no account of race or colour, in times of need they did not question creed or unbelief.  If their enemy was hungry or sick they cared for him; if a stranger crouched in the dark shadows of depression and despair, they took his hand and guided him into the light.  They saw only that God had walked beside them along the paths of injustice, terror and shame, and He did not discriminate between the unworthy and the righteous. 

Canterbury Cathedral - December - The Corona Chapel

In this quiet chapel, where the welcome smile
of a winter morning streams through lapis glass
lighting up sun gold slim pillar and wide stepped stone,
I meditate on the saints and martyrs of our time,
commemorated here where once Becket’s crown was laid.
Archbishop, poet, philosopher, minister, priest and nun, 
long cherished in the hearts of all whose lives they embraced,
their loving spirits bright mirror of the divine.

They followed their Master far up the dangerous mountain path,
along the edge of the precipice, across the roaring torrent,
into a city of sad madmen, tyrants and thieves.
There, to reject neither the summons to deathbed or prison cell,
the trembling outstretched hand, the empty pleading eyes,
but to nourish the broken and the hungry soul,
to touch with love the outcast and the untouchable,
and break again the alabaster jar and anoint the weary feet.

They went to Bethlehem to greet the Christ Child’s coming,
they sat in the Temple amongst the wondering doctors,
in the wilderness they prayed for him and at his baptism rejoiced,
they walked and talked with him beside the Sea of Galilee,
they wept for him in the moonlit agony of Gethsemane
and in his footsteps trod their own Via Dolorosa.
He, their Child, their Teacher and their Lord.
Verbum caro factum
Venite adoramus Dominum

Naomi

Jane : A Shining Encounter : 1942

The forenoon was warm and the leaves around his new enclosure 

nodded like tired dancers in the lazy September breeze.

Lying in the sweet scented grass, his eyes closed

against the cloudless sky, Ming remembered 

the Jiajin Mountains of Sichuan, the place where he was born,

and the wide groves of tall bamboos

where he and his brothers had played and run free.

He remembered the cruel ungentle men who had seized him,

torn him awayfrom the den in the trees, the bamboos

and the wide flowing Chuan Jiang river.

Into a box he was pushed and onto a ship he was loaded,

across a vast ocean and to a great grey chill city he was taken,

imprisoned in a cage with bamboo a plenty,

but no brothers to play with, no mountain slopes to roam.

He sighed and slept until a persistant noise intruded on his sunlit dreams.

Blinking sleep heavy eyes, he saw a small creature wriggling

through a gap in the heavy wire fence, contorting its young body

around the jagged edges like a Chinese Cobra

emerging from its rocky lair in the foothills of Sichuan.

The panda stiffened, nervous of this invasion into his solitary world,

but the elfin child, with hair white as cotton in a field, smiled.

Like a magnet in a jar of pins, the hole in the fence had enticed Jane

from the safety of the rug on the grass into a magical land of dreams

where, as moonlight pierced the shadows of the night,

the nursery toys danced and sang beneath the glistening stars.

Her eyes fixed on the huge toy now come alive in the sunshine morning,

she clasped a large rock bun made moist with apple and honey,

trotted through the long grass and held out a petite hand.

In that moment of offering quiet and unfearful, she watched bewitched
as the great black furry paw moved slowly down to her small palm,
and gently, oh so gently, from her he took the sticky offering. 
Then “Time to go now, sweetheart”,  her father’s voice,
benign and clear as as a moorland beck in an empty evening,
summoned her quietly back to the rug on the grass
and the scruffy old toy with black patched eyes.  

Wearing a cloak of angelic innocence, face bright with undiluted joy,
her heart consigned the shining encounter to memory,
 which even her mother’s trembling anger could not destroy.
For thus would her perfect trust have been shattered,
and lost for ever the remembrance abiding in that moment
when the spinning globe hesitated on its axis,
earth and heaven combined, and the world stood still.
 

Naomi

The Great White Owl

 The Great White Owl

‘Let me fly with the great white owl,
give me strong poison’ she said,
‘and I will drink a draft
of blessed oblivion.
My strength is all but past,           
my time here now is done.’
But he had no strong poison
to give her, and she wept
that she must live another day.

‘Let me fly with the great white owl,
fetch me Nembutal’ she
entreated, ‘mix it with
honey and sweet white wine,       
and I will draw close at last
to death’s kindly sleep.’
But he had no Nembutal
to fetch for her, and she
cried out in her misery.

‘Let me fly with the great white owl,
bring me a gun’ she begged,
‘that I may find an end
to this  living death.’
But he had no gun
to bring to her and she turned           
her face away from him
that he might not see now
her ultimate despair.

‘Kiss me once’ she whispered,
‘and kiss me once again,
this be our  sweet good night.
Smother me with a pillow,
hold me close in your arms           
until all my breath is gone.
Give me a final blessing,
as you set me free
to fly at last with the great white owl.’

He kissed her once, he kissed
her gently once again.
He took up the pillow
and held it to her face,
clasped his arms about her           
until her struggles ceased,
and her soul’s soft whisper
bade him a faint adieu.
‘Go fly my love’ he said, ‘it is your time.’

Quietly he laid her down
grateful for her passing,
and looked out into the
long night’s mist grey ending
as the great white owl flew
with her departing soul,
while angels and morning
bright stars sang in chorus
and Love held out his arms in welcome.
                                                   
                                                  Naomi

Herring Gull Walk

Herring Gull Walk

Up the Square they came,
two herring gulls
out for a morning stroll,
heads nodding
and toes tuned out,
feathered hands clasped 
behind feathered backs,
like fellows of The House
taking a matutinal turn 
in Christ Church Meadow,
dissecting the niceties
of Kant and Schopenhauer.

Down the Square went
a warble of finches,
rose-pink, green and gold,
decorous like convent girls
dressed in their best,
Children of Mary going
to Sunday Mass, who
nodded and curtsied
to the scholar gulls,
then fluttered away
to the old bandstand,
hoping for hip-hop and rap.

                                   Naomi

Skylark

Skylark

In my mind's eye
he lies, sad small bundle,
amongst the wildflowers,
on a bank of grief and death.
He was a skylark,
rising into the air,
singing of his love
to his love, in notes
as clear and bright
as a mountain stream,
sweet like swansdown   
drifting across a lake.

Heaven listened, and
reached down to earth.

Bored with the day,
a boy with an air gun
turned upwards to the sky,
fired an aimless shot.
A pure high note
lingered on the air,
but the singer fell,
a broken leaf fluttering down
to his fragrant flowery bier,
his ragged silhouette
tinged with morning glory.

His song was done.

From whence comes Joy?

From whence comes Joy?       

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.                          Tagore

                                                                             

The Sparrow Family had bathed in the sandy dust of a hot summer’s afternoon and now, wings spread wide to trap  the cooling air, sat close to their nests in the shrubs beside the iron railings.  The Patriarch, while pretending to sleep, was keeping a  sharp bright eye on his extended family.

    “What in the name of Rhiannon is that boy doing?” he demanded.
    “Who, Papa? Oh him! it’s Eldest Son.” said Eldest Daughter. “He’s making a chart showing his  evolution from some flying monster who disappeared a million years ago.”
    “Why’s he doing that?” the Pariarch asked.
    “Search me”  said Eldest Daughter.
    “I know,” cheeped a Grandson, who was dissecting a particularly succulent worm, “it’s Science.”
    “It’s boring.” said his fluffy big sister. “He’s stopped singing, he’s stopped teasing Seagulls, and he hasn’t time any more to visit the Venerable Old Bird in his evening nest of a thousand sky blue flowers.”

    “True,” said a Cousin, “but he’s really devoted to this Evolution thing.  He says it’s ‘Logically beautiful’ and ‘The intellectual Key to the mystery of our being.’ Very posh.”
    “But does he find any joy in it?” asked the Matriarch.
    “Not joy, perhaps,” said the Cousin, “but lots of satisfaction from the patterns he’s found  in his chart. He says the answer to the whole enigma of life is there - who are we, what  are we, and why are we.”
     “Maybe.” said the Matriarch. “But we need nectar for the soul as well as grist for the mind.”
  
    She fluttered across the grass to where her Eldest Son  huddled over his extraordinary Chart.
    “May I see?” she said.    Eldest Son looked up amazed.
    “Do you really want to look at this ‘boring old thing’?”
    “Yes I do, because it matters to you.”  She stared wide eyed at the Chart, and then  said
    “I wonder if you can look up at Science and say:  ‘You are the delight of my heart, my consolation in  sorrow, a light that guides me through  the dark of the storm.  You shelter me from the fierce heat of Summer, and in Autumn you share with me the bounty of the harvest. You warm me through the bitter days of Winter, and in Springtime you invite me into the Circle of Life which is a dance eternal.' "

    Eldest Son shrugged.  “No, not really.” he said. “When I look at Evolution, I begin to find answers to my questions about real life - about yesterday, today and even tomorrow. There are a thousand questions still unasked, and I shall never find answers to most of them, but I cannot stop looking.  Something drives me on, but I can’t tell you what. I don’t  look into the heart of your Holy One, whom I have yet to meet. I’m not a poet like you Mama.”

    The Matriarch chuckled. “No poet. Just a plump old bird  in a faded old motley brown coat, who has caught a glimpse of the Divine One mirrored in the fiery face of the Sun and the sweet silvered features of the moon.  He is both the source and the end of my being.” She smiled at Eldest Son “Between us, you and me united, together we might one day bring a little extra Joy to the world.”

Naomi